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Subject: Can you guess what it is yet ?
mrsparky posted at 7:45AM Wed, 02 December 2020 - #4405880
thanks everyone ...sorry there was no update last night, a little darling threw a paddy and vandalised one of our playgroup tables.
While he was sent home without any tea, we couldn't get the graffiti off our logo. We did try some alternate stickers, but our stock was limited because another big toddler was naughty and closed all the cool shops.
So if anyone wants a free table, just leave a message here..
Bwahahahahaha! That's awesome. Maybe he thought a tiny table would make his little hands look bigger. ;-)
I couldn't possibly comment on that :)
...as for tonights update...Which if you know about modelling, mapping etc is ..well.. a tad boring. If you don't, you might find it interesting to know.
Both the models above use box mapping. It's the most basic form of mapping and generally good for buildings because they are square(ish). But if you have an inset on your model, it has an annoying habit. As you can see once you apply a texture, anything on the outside will be the same on the inside of the inset.
So what you need to do is create a separate "material zone" for the inset. Which can be done in most modelling/mapping software, but not all. Plus it can be fiddly to do. Hence I define these separate zones in the modelling software. Then play and tweak these zones in the mapping software. Upside is it makes the models look so much better. Downside is it's time consuming to do.
Which, as you can see from the (very rough) second picture, is the stage I'm at now with building #3. But that's now finished for that model, so now I can texture it. You'll also notice from the 2nd image the walls are separate zones. This is done that way because, as mentioned earlier, it allows for better quality images to be used as textures. Which in turn makes for better renders.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
You hit on why I give most of my things plenty of usefully named material zones. It makes them easier to map and makes it easier for anyone else to come along later and alter stuff without having to change the entire texture set. I bleedin' hate it when I get models with Lambert_1, Lambert_2 and all that malarkey. Would it kill 'em to put stuff like Front_Wall, Side_Door and so on?
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Totally agree and I've also found by creating separate smaller zones you can improve the quality of things like signs and logos.
For example, say I was making a jet fighter that's 60 polygons wide. Near the cockpit I'd make a 1-2 polys wide a separate zone. Then in the mapper I enlarge both zones to max size.That way I could have a rescue/ejection sticker that's perfectly legible.
Which is basically what I'm doing tonight, hence no update.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Dreadfully late to this promising playground. My solitary contribution, with the sincere hope of avoiding offence (razor-wire or other), I give you:
Seal Seal Seal Seal
Verbosity: Profusely promulgating Graham's number epics of complete and utter verbiage by the metric monkey barrel.
mrsparky posted at 4:42AM Fri, 04 December 2020 - #4406390
Totally agree and I've also found by creating separate smaller zones you can improve the quality of things like signs and logos.
For example, say I was making a jet fighter that's 60 polygons wide. Near the cockpit I'd make a 1-2 polys wide a separate zone. Then in the mapper I enlarge both zones to max size.That way I could have a rescue/ejection sticker that's perfectly legible.Which is basically what I'm doing tonight, hence no update.
You have mail, old chap.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Bloody hell! That's outstanding, mate.
Replied to yer reply. :)
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
It would seem that a spell outdoors at a garden centre and runny hair dye do a body no favours. Mr Guiliani reportedly has Covid. I sincerely wish him all the best for a swift and trouble free recovery, even though we are poles apart politically.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Yeah, it's apparently not just a positive test. He's been hospitalized.
Which probably means he's been spreading it around for awhile, since it takes several days at least before you're so sick you need to be hospitalized, and he's been partying and posing for photos maskless. Which may be how he got it in the first place.
But I, too, wish him a speedy recovery. Not least because this model won't be nearly as funny if he croaks.
As for tonights update and this one is aimed at anyone new to 3d. Just to show how things are done. For anyone with a little more experience, you may think ...hey that's wrong or badly explained. So please comment/expand as it'll help other artists.
If you think of a 3d model as you would of a real world plastic kit. Generally when you open the box it's plain, there's no paint or decals on it. There is software out there where you can paint 3d models. But often 3d modellers will "map" (sometimes called UVmap) the mode. This is a process that 'flattens' the model and where you can assign parts of it to (what I call) a material zone.
For example, you might assign all the parts with concrete onto a material called concrete. This can take a while, but eventually you'll need up with a (or a series) of template(s). The template is coloured in then applied to the model.
As you can see here compared to the other images, this is looking rather clean. That's because personally I like to work using layers/overlays of differing opacity levels to build up stuff like dirt and grunge.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
As good an explanation as I've ever heard, mate.
What do you use for mapping? I use UVMapper Pro. It's only in the last couple of years I started getting the hang of it, too. Plain ordinary mapping was no bother but I used to struggle with anything more complex than a box. Had to learn a lot when I made the guitar amp.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Thanks Sam - I use Carrara 5, export out to LithUnwrap -because that does 3 handy things.
It optimises the mesh, warns me if there's any un-triangulated bits and if I select box mapping it maps everything in one perfect square.
It doesn't muck up the material/groups names either.
Then I go into UVmapper Pro, make that full screen, then map by group/material as needed. Ticking all 3 options on box mapping. Many moons later hopefully I have some reasonable material zones that can be saved as templates. Finally once mapped spilt the vertexes.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Triangulated? Argh! Bane of my life. I try me best to avoid tris and often retopo other people's meshes to get rid of 'em. Still, if it works for you, fair enough; I mainly avoid because they add to bloat and because Poser sometimes renders 'em strange. Can't really get away without them for holes in stuff, though.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Sorry Sam not clear there. I triangulate in Carrara. Lith is used for test for missing ones, but I don't triangulate in Lith because I find Poser doesn't like how Lith does it's triangulation.
Though yea I also find the whole triangulation thing a confusing PITA. If I want to unfold a model in Pepakura (turns meshes into paper models), triangulated models can sometimes confuse it. Yet Slice for Fusion360 (used to turn meshes into real world models), and my 3d printer software, doesn't seem to care if a mesh is triangulated or not.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Sorry there's been no updates for a few days, been waylaid by a combo of some kinda winter bug and being roped into xmas shopping. Which left me totally shattered, we're talking Olympic grade sleeping. Then sometimes as the queues are so long for the shops, I even managed to do both at the same time before anyone noticed.
But back to whatever passes for normal in 2020 and another WIP.
And don't worry whatever I had hasn't sneaked down the internet and fried your brain as well as mine. What you see here is a test to see if I like how I've mapped and laid out the material zones, or if there's any obvious errors.
For example, notice on the security sensor thingys, there's a separate zone. That's because I noticed on some of these the panels are not always sensors, but are lights. So if you use software that allows a material to be used as a light emitter, you can easily switch out the plastic texture/material to a light emitter.
On the red square I can see I didn't map a part correctly, that is actually a light-light, so I'll quickly remap that to the correct zone. Then I can move onto colouring it all in.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Olympic grade sleeping? I can do that, no bother. :D
I've encountered the odd - literally - problem with Wings (which I use) from time to time, where it arbitrarily assigns materials to another region. Ran into it with one of my Dalek models and the only solution was to rebuild the bleedin' thing. Somehow the model got corrupted but the problem didn't show up until I saved out the obj.
Oh, the joys of modelling stuff.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Olympic grade sleeping? I can do that, no bother. :D
Yea normally no probs either, especially on buses..cue the old joke about the passengers getting upset, but seriously that one flattened me.
Oh, the joys of modelling stuff.
Oh yes...I just mapped this one, made a change and it decides it wants to map as 1:5 and not 1:1. Still looks alright, just prefer a square map. Then I messed up and selected the wrong bits, but as you can see it's nearly there now..couple of tweaks and job done.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Oh yes, very nice work.
I think I've only ever used square maps. Sometimes I've had multiple maps - I like UVMapper Pro for the ability to hide stuff - but always essentially square.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Thanks - yea I like square as well, though sometimes...grrr..and tonight is one of those
As you'll see my modelling is a little off from the actual. Which is down to what I said at hivewire about using google streetview/photos and foreshortening.
Now obviously I want a reasonable level of accuracy, but to what degree is what I'll discuss here. Photos are OK under fair use for the purpose of education/debate.
For the modelling ...the 2 red arrows show my model isn't wide enough there. Which, in theory, should be fixable by "stretching" the mesh and a quick remap. Plus some extra detail needs to be added in.
The red box is more tricky, as the 4 seasons zoom photo shows theres a door there. Cutting that out is likely to destroy the mapping. So door or no door, that's the Q. Part of me says no, because of the mapping issue, and I want this done soon. Mainly as I want to start on the traditional xmas freebie. But part of me says yes aim for accurate.
Next is colour, notice how the blue green is different in all 3 photos. The 4 seasons one is direct from them, it's a zoom background they put on twitter. Accurate, but a very dark colour and most press images are lighter. So here I'll go for the lighter and a hint at the top grunge.
White is also a problem, clearly on the real thing it's a very clean white. But that's a problem as you can see from the press images, the highlight is blown out. Something that rendering makes way worse than any photo. So here I'll use a model makers trick and create a "scale white". That's where you don't use a pure white, but one that's slightly grey. That way it won't blow and be so noticeable on the renders.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Agh! I'd be sorely tempted to correct it. Seems you're very much like me in that respect; I had to go back and rebuild a lot of my Dalek models - several times - to get them more accurate. Eventually, though, after 4 or 5 versions, I thought they were good enough.
You're right about pure white, too; there's no such thing in RL, anyhow, unless you're talking about highlights and so on.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Agh! I'd be sorely tempted to correct it.
Yea think I've got to, so that's what I've done. So the widths by the doors are now more accurate and the small door has been added.
That aspect was easy enough, and the upside was a lot of the other parts (in white) could be recycled and won't need remapping.
Big downside the wires now don't fit. Originally these came from a pack of meshes kindly made for me a while back by Kastaway. Some of these I will resuse, but some I'm going to make from scratch using Carrara spline modeller. A rather fiddly process as the screenshot below shows. Something I've never done before, so can't promise 100% real world accuracy, probably more of a reasonable representation. But on the upside it will lose the square clips on the 1st version, something I didn't like.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Cables and the like are fairly easy to do in Wings, once you get the hang of it. I've never yet used a spline modeller, but so far Wings manages everything I need.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Thanks Randy. Sam, be interested to hear your technique for that.
...and tonights...as you can see still "wiring" and this one was a real brain taxer! But I think I've cracked a way to do it, which might help anyone facing the same challenge.
Take a segment of 'wire', in the shape you want. Be that a preexisting mesh, spline etc. Stretch to length, rotate etc, then cut it in 1/2 down the length, deleting the unwanted bit.
This brings two bonuses: 1..it helps reduce the overall polycount of your model.
2..if you want to place the wire against (something like) a very thin wall you won't get it poking through the other side. Which allows you to use really thick cables, for example if you wanted armoured power cables in a sci-fi set.
Place your segment in the desired location, repeat the above and line it up next to the 1st segment, leaving a small gap. Now create a cylinder and slice that in 1/2. Kerching! There's a wire clip, just like in the real world. Move that into place, aiming for around the point where the wire/cable etc starts to droop.
Obviously, in the large image, these clips are not yet in place. Nor is it a perfect solution, it is time consuming, but so far it seems to work.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
No problem. I'm not in Wings right now but I'll get it lit up in a day or so and see if I can give you the heads up on what I do.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Also starting on the few objects by the door, which will be a fire extinguisher, 3 (all different types) of hose reels, a waterproof junction box and 4 plates with bolts. The latter because they'll give some extra detail to what is 'in essence' the hero shot of this model.
Now for the crucial thing, I asked Santa if he's ready to pop this down your chimney before xmas. But he can't give me a straight answer as his sleigh is in currently stuck in Dover docks along with everyone else's pressies and Rudolph's carrots.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
It's all looking good, mate.
Yeah, the port delays are a bit of a shock to everyone, although they should have seen it coming. I hope Santa it taking suitable precautions with PPE this year.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
This is going to be so fantastic!
Apparently, Four Seasons Total Landscaping has become something of a tourist attraction:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/four-seasons-total-landscaping-the-full-est-possible-story.html
They still don't know how it ended up being the site of the press conference. Sounds like the business is taking full advantage of their fame, though.
The Siravos were nothing if not good marketers, and by December, they’d sold more than $1 million of the merchandise they’d drawn up to capitalize on all the attention, like stickers that read “Make America Rake Again!” and “Lawn and Order!”
Yea dunno why but I want this one to be a nice one as well. Probably because I'm a little bit rusty on the virtual modelling side compared to the real world modelling side.
And yes the port thing is an a**e if you're waiting on Lego and cauliflower Or possibly even some four seasons merch :)
Talking of waiting, sorry no update tonight. Stezza (at the related thread over at hivewire) has kindly created a video which shows how to make curly stuff within Carrara 5. So I've been playing with the virtual Plasticine all night.
FYI - talking of playing, I gather I'm note the only idiot working on a 3d version. I knew of a VR version for furries, but it seems this location may have stirred other modellers loins into action as well. So you folks may have a choice, or as I hear, more precisely you could always pay someone at the Big T a few $1000. Though fear not, this one will remain a freebie in the spirit of silliness and Santa's.
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Pleased to say now we've got past Christmas, Covid Cops and Crutches..just the usual quiet xmas :)...slowly getting back into this. Tonight the final modelling of the extinguisher top, which - I hope - has enough detail for hero shots balanced against poly count (around 500k).
Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.
Very nice, neat work. The perennial problem of detail versus poly count.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
Digitell posted at 8:28AM Thu, 31 December 2020 - #4409035
I think this discussion really belongs in the 3D Modeling forum.
I strongly disagree. It's going to be a Poser freebie, and barring the odd comment here and there it doesn't go into great detail about the nuts and bolts of modelling. If things keep getting moved out of here this forum is soon going to be deader than disco.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.
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ROTFL! Thanks for all the smiles along the way.